


Ghosts of Another Kind

by Kariki



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Family Issues, Gen, Harry Has Issues, Hints of Parksborn, Inspired by headcanon, M/M, Norman was a bit creepy, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-03 18:05:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1753725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kariki/pseuds/Kariki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry's mother died when he was 4 years old.  Now that he's 20, he sees her everyday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts of Another Kind

**Author's Note:**

> This was not Beta read so apologies in advance.

Harry didn't remember much of his mother; just a faint idea of what her perfume smelled like, how soft her voice was when she read him to sleep at night, the way she always kissed his forehead. But those memories were faint at best. 

She had died when he was only 4 years old and Norman had never forgiven him. She had never had the best of health but she had insisted on having Harry and no one, not her doctors and not her husband, could tell her any different. She got what she wanted, of course she did. A beautiful baby that had her eyes and had her light colored hair. To her, the blow to her health was a reasonable exchange. Her husband disagreed.

Norman had a grudge against Harry as soon as he was born.

* * *

The first time Harry set foot into Oscorp after his father's death, he had stepped into an elevator and it was like someone had punched him hard in the stomach.

Emily Osborn's face stared out at him from the small screen by the doors. She asked him what floor and all he could do was wonder if that was really his mother's voice or was his memory of her worse than he thought. She had been so soft around him.

It was Menken that answered her question and snapped Harry out of his thoughts.

“What the fuck?” He asked, voice soft and harsh.

Menken raised an unimpressed eyebrow but didn't bother to explain.

* * *

Harry got used to seeing his mother's image at every turn – in the elevators, on the monitors of the more important computers, on his father's computer turned desk. He stopped hoping for some form of recognition to pass over the digital eyes, stopped expecting warmth instead of the cold formality he was already used to receiving from Norman.

She was just a computer now, still dead and cold and gone just like Norman was now dead and cold and gone. 

And if he didn't find a cure, soon all the Osborns would be dead and cold and gone.

* * *

The lights in New York City went out and the lights in Gwen Stacy went out as well. Harry Osborn didn't have to see his mother's dead eyes for eight months.

* * *

Harry's hand still had a tremor, but this time it was from the nerve damage caused by the Goblin battle suit's lodging itself into his nervous system, welding bits of metal into the skin of his arms, chest, and head. The suit might have saved his life but it got it's own back.

The spider venom had saved his life as well, even as it almost killed him, even has it tore at what sanity he had had left leaving Harry to fight tooth and nail to get it back. The cure – a real, proper cure – had only healed the damage done by his disease, had stopped the chemicals in his head from fucking up, but Harry's skin still held the scars of it all.

Scars were scattered over his body from where the green scabs of rot had been healed over with fresh, healthy skin. They covered his temples and cheekbones, they ran down his neck and over his back, down his arms and legs... but the scars were human and they didn't hurt.

“You don't have to escort me, Peter.” Harry said softly, hands folded in front of him as they rode the elevator down from the top office. The meeting had been harsh and hard, none of the new board members quite willing to give Harry much leverage... but the company belonged to the Osborns and as long as Harry took his meds and kept his appointments with Dr. Hamilton, there was no reason to keep the company from him.

“I want to, Harry,” Peter shrugged beside him but his smile didn't quite reach his eyes. “Though I still think you need to take things slower.”

“If I go any slower, I'll be standing still.” Harry shook his head and watched the image of his mother stare blankly at them. 

For the first time, Harry could believe his mother would look at him like that, cold and detached. Her son was a murderer, of course she wouldn't want anything to do with him.

“Do you know who that is?” Harry asked Peter softly, nodding toward the screen. It took Peter a few seconds to catch on.

“I just figured she was just one of those digital ladies someone made up in a computer lab.” Peter shrugged but leaned forward to look at the screen better. “Should I know her...” His voice trailed off and a frown tugged at his lips. He looked up at Harry, his brows furrowed. “She has your eyes...”

“I have her eyes,” Harry corrected with a shrug and looked out the glass walls of the elevator to avoid looking at Peter. “Her name's Emily. Father, being the creepy bastard he is, had her likeness put in the system...”

“Oh...” Peter straightened up but kept looking at the computer screen. “Um... she's lovely?”

“You're such a dork.” Harry shook his head, hating that Peter had managed to draw out a small smile from him. “It's just... I never really knew her, you know?”

“Yeah,” Peter answered softly, nodding. “I can't imagine what that must have been like, coming here and seeing her everywhere.”

Harry had seen Peter's bedroom before, he had pictures of his parents everywhere... though his parents don't move and talk either.

“Tell me about her?”

“I've told you about her before.”

“Tell me again.”

“I don't remember much,” Harry licked his lips and glanced at the screen. “She... used read to me at night. _The Little Prince_ , I think. She'd tuck me in and kiss my forehead. She always kissed my forehead.” He frowned as he tried to pull up more memories. “She smelled like lilies...”

Peter nodded along silently.

“Do you have any pictures of her?”

“There's pictures of her all over Oscorp, Pete.”

“No, I mean real pictures.” Peter nodded toward the screen. “That might look like her but that's not your mom.”

Harry thought of the mansion he grew up in. The only pictures on the walls were bought from galleries, the side tables and mantles were also bare of picture frames. To anyone who saw it, it looked like an abandoned house that someone still cleaned up every week. 

In a way, it was.

The only thing that stopped Harry from selling the damn place – or burning it to the ground – was the fact that he had no idea what Norman might have hidden in those walls. Maybe instead of biological weaponry and genetic experiments gone awry, perhaps there was a shoebox of old photographs stashed under a bed somewhere.

He doubted it but it was a nice thought.

“No, no pictures.”

* * *

Harry had bought the penthouse the day he was released from Ravencroft. It took up the top three stories of its building and overlooked Central Park and, most importantly, it had no connection to Norman or Oscorp. It was something that was completely and utterly his own and that was how he wanted it to stay.

If Peter had found the sudden purchase odd, he never said, but Harry kept one of the windows in the living room unlocked for Spider-man. There had been conditions to Harry's release from the mental asylum, the meds and the therapy sessions, but this was a condition Harry had made on his own. 

Quite simply, he wanted the hero to be able to get to him easily... in case he had to stop him. And if that window was ever locked? A sign that something was wrong.

It had been harder to convince Peter of the reasoning behind the decision, harder than Harry had thought it would be, but Peter eventually agreed.

He wanted his friend back just as much as Harry wanted to be back.

Peter never really took up the offer of the window. During his nighttime patrols, he'd just glance in through the window if he was passing by. When he escorted Harry to and from Oscorp, he always came in through the front door. 

Tonight, Peter came in through the window.

Harry looked over the back of the couch in surprise but smiled as Peter pressed the button that would darken the glass and took off his mask.

“Hey, Har.”

“I wasn't expecting you tonight, Pete.” Harry smiled, standing up. “No kittens stuck in trees?”

“Ha, ha.” Peter shrugged off his backpack. “Nah, things have been quiet lately and... well, we haven't really had a chance to hang out.”

“You ride with me to work every day.”

“That doesn't count and you know it.” Peter pulled a sweatshirt out of the backpack and shrugged it on. “I mean normal stuff. Watching TV and eating take out. That sort of thing.”

“You still want to do that sort of thing with me?” Harry asked, watching Peter's still gloved hands as they dug through the backpack, looking for something. “You don't owe me anything, Peter...”

“Catch!” Harry blinked as Peter's hand emerged holding a small black book which immediately began flying toward him as Peter tossed it. He fumbled a bit catching it but managed not to drop it. He looked up to glower at Peter.

“What's this?”

“Just something,” Peter shrugged, zipping the backpack back up. “Just... just something I thought you would want.”

Harry looked down at the book and opened it.

His mother stared back up at him. 

The picture of her was utterly still, unlike the blinking and speaking version scattered all over Oscorp tower. But unlike the digital clone Harry was familiar with, this version of his mother looked alive.

Her hair was done up in curls and her dress was classically elegant but it was her face that Harry couldn't look away from. Her lips were a bright red instead of the purple from Oscorp and she was _smiling_. Not just smiling but beaming out of the photograph. 

It wasn't a personal photograph, in the background was a sea of photographers, reporters, and the sort of people that clustered around red carpets in hopes of catching a glimpse of a celebrity.

“I... I tried to only find pictures of her. No Norman...” Harry looked up as Peter started talking. The other boy was fidgeting nervously. “They're all pictures of her I found on the internet. You know, from old magazines and newspaper articles. I know it's not the same as having family photos and stuff and maybe we'll find some one day but I figured... I figured it was better than nothing.”

Harry opened his mouth then closed it. He looked down at the book, no, at the photo album, and flipped to the next page. She wore less make up in this one and a more conservative dress but she still grinned at the camera, looking more alive in utter stillness than she ever looked on the computer.

He licked his lips and looked back up at Peter.

“I... I really don't know what to say...” He hesitated, swallowing hard. 

“Hey, don't worry about it,” Peter put his hands on Harry's shoulders so he could look him in the eye. “I wanted to do it, Harry.”

Harry pulled Peter down into a tight hug and held it for a moment. “Thanks, Pete...”

* * *

The black photo album was still on the right side table when Peter woke up later that night. 

Thai food containers littered the coffee table in front of them and the James Bond movie marathon they had started earlier that night was still going on, now toward the end of Casino Royale. The clock over the big screen TV read 3:43.

Harry was asleep, his head resting on Peter's thigh.

With the medication Harry was required to take, it was easy for him to fall asleep but that also meant it was hard to wake him up. 

Carefully, Peter slipped out from under his friend and stood. The bones in his back popped in protest. He hoped Aunt May hadn't stayed up waiting on him. He had told her he was going to Harry's and might be home late but 3 in the morning wasn't late – was early except on the wrong day.

As quietly as he could, Peter went around, turning off the lights and TV before turning back to his sleeping friend.

“Come on, Har,” He said softly, kneeling by Harry's head. “Time for bed. No sleeping on couches when there's an absurdly large bed with indecently expensive sheets waiting down the hall.”

Harry mumbled.

Peter sighed and considered his options. He knew Harry would have been completely indignant at being carried in his own house if he was awake for it. Unconscious, maybe not so much. He gingerly, slipped his arms under the sleeping blond and picked him. Harry really was too light for Peter's liking. He should make Harry come and eat with him and Aunt May. Aunt May had always liked having Harry around for mealtimes. He really was too skinny and even Peter knew it.

Peter maneuvered around the couch and, after a second's hesitation, leaned down and managed to grab the photo album he had made Harry.

He laid Harry down in his bed and set the album on the table by the bed, where Harry would see it in the morning. 

It had taken him hours and hours to find enough good quality pictures of Emily Osborn on the internet. It was harder still to find her alone or with anyone who wasn't Norman Osborn. He had had to resort to photoshopping a few of the pics, cropping out the man who had made his friend's life harder than it ever had to be.

Peter cracked open the album and looked at the first picture, searching for bits of Harry in her eyes and face. Did Norman look at Harry and see her? It was hard not to see a resemblance between the two so he must have. Was that one of the reasons he had sent Harry away? So he wouldn't see his dead wife in his son's eyes?

Peter closed the book and looked down at Harry.

“Night, Harry,” Peter said softly and, hesitating only a moment, leaned down and kissed his friend's forehead. “You'll be alright now.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had a sudden headcanon last night when I was watching the movie (again). It noticed we only see the AI/Computer woman in Norman/Harry's office computer and on the elevators (unless I missed her somewhere else). The idea that she might actually be Harry's mother and Norman had her likeness used in his computers came and lodged itself in my brain. Then it demanded to be written.


End file.
